Religion Past and Present (RPP) Online is the online version of the updated English translation of the 4th edition of the definitive encyclopedia of religion worldwide: the peerless Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart (RGG). This great resource, now at last available in English and Online, Religion Past and Present Online continues the tradition of deep knowledge and authority relied upon by generations of scholars in religious, theological, and biblical studies. Including the latest developments in research, Religion Past and Present Online encompasses a vast range of subjects connected with religion.

[German Version] (Oct 15, 1898, Karlsruhe – Feb 27, 1956, Leipzig), German organist, harpsichordist, choirmaster, and composer; in Leipzig from 1910. Ramin studied under K. Straube; he was organist at Sankt Thomas and at the Gewandhaus (Leipzig) from 1933 to1938, and from 1945 to 1951, he directed the Gewandhaus choir; and from 1935 to 1943, the Berlin Philharmonic Choir. He was cantor at Sankt Thomas from 1940 to 1956. Ramin composed works for organ and choir, and wrote about the organ and the Bach tradition; he also published practical editions. Christian Finke Bibliography L. v. Koer…

[German Version] (Eng.: Raymond martini, c. 1215/1220, Subirats, Catalonia – c. 1292, Barcelona), Dominican. In 1263 Ramón was present at a Christian-Jewish disputation (I) in Barcelona, and preached in Murcia to Jews and Muslims. In 1269 he was expelled from Tunis after a short stay. He maintained relations with the court of St. Louis IX in Paris, and with Thomas Aquinas. He spent his last years in Barcelona. His polemical
magnum opus, Pugio fidei, written in 1278, is based on excellent knowledge of Jewish and Islamic sources and treats the following subjects: the e…

[German Version] (Chevalier Ramsay; 1686, Ayr, Scotland – May 6, 1743, St. Germain en Laye, near Paris), son of a baker, Ramsay was repelled while still a youth by the controversy between presbyterianism (Presbyterians) and Episcopalianism. As a student he tended towards Deism, but also formed links with mystical and spiritualist circles, which he intensified while a private tutor in London. He was on the continent from 1710, first with P. Poiret in Rijnsburg. Then he worked as secretary to F. Fén…

[German Version] (Dec 10, 1913, Mendenhall – Apr 29, Princeton), was a Protestant ethicist and student of H.R. Niebuhr at Yale. Ramsay taught at Princeton University from 1944 to 1982. His early writings show his gifts as a moral philosopher and theological ethicist. However, Ramsay is best known for his penetrating analysis of particular moral issues. His study of the just war tradition led him grudgingly to support limited nuclear deterrence and the Vietnam War. Ramsay used the doctrine of coven…

[German Version] (Nov 14, 1904, Cambridge, UK – Apr 23, 1988, Oxford, UK), archbishop of Canterbury, was a much beloved and admired priest, theologian, and bishop of broad, yet traditional, Anglo-Catholic leanings. After Cambridge Ramsey was ordained in the Church of England and served in both parish and university appointments. In 1952 Ramsey became bishop of Durham, in 1956 archbishop of York, and in 1961 archbishop of Canterbury, where he labored tirelessly in mission work and the wider Anglica…

[German Version] (Pierre de la Ramée; 1515, Cuts, Picardy – Aug 28, 1572, Paris), came from an impoverished aristocratic family; he attended the Collège de Navarre in Paris from the age of 12, and gained his M.A. in 1536. His polemics against Aristotelianism caused a sensation; in 1544 King Francis I prohibited him from teaching and publishing on philosophical subjects. Until this ban was lifted in 1547 by King Francis II, Ramus devoted himself to mathematics. From 1551 he ¶ held important administrative posts at the University of Paris. From the early 1560s he was a Protes…

[German Version] (Jan 9, 1626, Paris – Oct 27, 1700, La Trappe), founder of the La Trappe reform (Trappists), son of Maria de’ Medici’s secretary, and godchild of Cardinal Richelieu. He held many benefices. In 1651 he was ordained priest, and in 1654 gained his Dr.theol. He became a rigorous ascetic, renounced his benefices, retired to La Trappe, and from then on subjected this Cistercian abbey to the strictest observance as regular abbot (1664–1695), attracting monks who were willing to reform. H…

[German Version] (Nov 6, 1900, Wolfskirch near Posen – Mar 14, 1988, Frankfurt am Main), decided after studying Protestant theology in Marburg to follow a teaching career. In 1930 he became a tutor, and in 1931 professor of religious education at the Halle Pedagogical Academy. After the academy’s closure in 1933, he was suspended. He had affinities with Gerhard Bohne’s concept of proclamation, but gave it a new church basis: religious education is “church in the school.” Rang’s biblical didactics …

[German Version] (ennobled in 1865; Dec 21, 1795, Wiehe an der Unstrut – May 23, 1886, Berlin), historian. After studying theology and philology in Leipzig and Halle and teaching in the Gymnasium in Frankfurt an der Oder, Ranke was appointed associate professor of history in Berlin in 1825; he taught as full professor from 1834 to 1871. Ranke helped make the study of history (Historiography: V, 2) an independent discipline based on critical analysis of sources, but he also viewed the work of a his…

[German Version] (Apr 22, 1884, Vienna – Mar 31, 1939, New York), pupil and secretary of S. Freud; from 1919, editor of the
Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse.¶ Rank’s book
Das Trauma der Geburt (1924; ET:
The Trauma of Birth, 1929) marked the beginning of an estrangement from Freud. In it, Rank develops the thesis that the trauma of birth and the fantasy of returning to the mother’s womb are more important than subsequent traumas, such as the Oedipus complex. His later work acquired speculative philosophical features; he …

[German Version] (Jun 15, 1903, Northern Ireland – Jan 13, 1988, USA), was ordained a Methodist minister in 1929 for service as a missionary in India. Appointed as secretary of the National Christian Council of India, Burma, and Ceylon in 1943, he became research secretary of the International Missionary Council (IMC) in 1945 and was elected to serve as general secretary at the IMC meeting in Whitby, Canada, in 1947. His years in that key post were dominated by the often sensitive and controversia…

[German Version] Ranters, a derogatory term used to characterize a quasi-religious anti-nomian movement (Antinomism)¶ among radical English Protestants which is thought to have emerged sometime between 1649 and 1654, during the Interregnum. As a movement, the Ranters were anarchic rather than organized as a sect and consisted largely of members of the Parliamentary army along with the London poor, where the movement was centered. The term originated among those who were deeply offended by their behavior, whi…

[German Version] began in the mid-1970s in New York as part of the complex, initially Afro-American and later international hip-hop movement, other expressions of which are DJing, breakdance, and graffiti. Rap (in the double sense of “utter vigorously” and “tap smartly”) is a rhythmic, mostly rhyming speech song with percussion accompaniment. It is thought to have arisen from Caribbean and African narrative traditions (
griot), from narrative Blues (Blues and religion), and from Black Power lyrics. The texts are about everyday social life of urban youth (esp…

[German Version] (Raffaello Sanzio; probably Apr 6, 1483, Urbino – Apr 6, 1520, Rome), Italian painter and architect. He was probably apprenticed in 1494 to Perugino in Perugia. In 1504 he went to Florence for further training; in 1508 he went to Rome, where in 1514 he succeeded Bramante as supervising architect of the new St. Peter’s Basilica. His extensive workshop included included Giulio Romano and Pierino del Vaga. Several Madonnas embodying the quintessence of naïve devotion antedate his move to Rome (
Madonna of the Goldfinch,
Madonna in Green, c. 1506/1507, both in the Uffiz…

[German Version] (Apr 30, 1903, Berlin – Oct 19, 1960, Herford). After studying music in Berlin (1922–1925), and supported by A. Mendelssohn and K. Straube, Raphael taught theory of music and composition from 1926 to 1934 at the Leipzig Conservatory, until he was compelled by racist persecution to withdraw to Meiningen (Thuringia) and in 1945 to Laubach (Hesse). After the war, the composer (who won the 1948 Liszt Prize in Weimar) began to teach again, as a lecturer in Duisburg (1949–1953) and from…

[German Version] (acronym: Shir; May 17 or Jun 1, 1790, Lemberg – Oct 16, 1867, Prague). In 1837 Rapoport accepted a call to become rabbi in Tarnopol, Galicia. The Prague Jewish community installed him in 1840 as their senior lawyer and in 1860 appointed him their chief rabbi. As a young man Rapoport accepted the ideas of the Jewish Enlightenment, under the influence of N. Krochmal. He was strictly faithful to the Law, opposing both the anti-rationalism of east European Hasidism and the Jewish ref…

[German Version] is a sudden transfer by means of divine power to a remote location, usually heaven (Ascension), or to a far-away country, on a mountain, etc. This may pro-¶ vide for temporary protection or enable an ecstatic reception of revelation. It is granted to those with a special relationship to God as an alternative to death. Because it involves the physical body and not just the taking up of the soul, the search for a body by those left behind is often futile, and there is no grave. Frequently, rapture is a way to cope with an unnatural or unsolved death. The raptured one …

[German Version] (lit. “taste, essence”) is primarily a term from Indian aesthetics and poetics that includes archetypal moods, the essence of what can be experienced, and of human feelings as such. The oldest written source is thought to be the
Nāṭyaśāstra, a dance and theater manual, dated to the 2nd century (Kūtiyāṭṭam, Indian ¶ dance). It already lists eight of the nine moods current today:
śṛṇgāra, “erotic mood”;
hāsya, “comic”;
karuṇa, “compassion”;
raudra, “terrifying”;
vīra, “heroic”;
bhayānaka, “terrible”;
bībhatsa, “revolting,” and
adbhuta, “wonderful”; the l…

[German Version] (Rasel, Raesel; 1563, Halmbach, Oberpfalz – Jan 6, 1602, Heidelberg), composer and musical theorist. In 1581 Raselius studied in Heidelberg, where in 1583 he became preceptor at the elector’s
Pädagogium; in 1584 he became teacher and cantor in Regensburg; in 1600, court musical director in Heidelberg. He published two anthologies of songs (1591 and 1599), and two collections of German Gospel texts for Sundays and festivals (1594 and 1595). Raselius’s main work on the theory of music,
Hexachordum seu quaestiones musicae practicae (1598), was of great importance…